Titled The Consta, Kalapo's set of images looks at the transformation of public spaces into commercial sites and the challenges this brings to the fullfilment of ordinary citizens in Bamako, Mali
Titled The Consta, Kalapo's set of images looks at the transformation of public spaces into commercial sites and the challenges this brings to the fullfilment of ordinary citizens in Bamako, Mali
Image: John Moussa Kalapo

The Market Photo Workshop in partnership with City of Joburg’s Centre on African Public Spaces (CAPS) and the University of Joburg (UJ) has launched a public photographic exhibition at Joubert Park — the inner city’s busiest and oldest park that is also home to the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Titled in, relating to, or characteristic of: a photographic exploration of urban and public life in Africa, the exhibition brings together a group of photographers and culture practitioners from the continent to visually engage the dynamics and meaning of urban life and public spaces in the African sense.

It is a social responsibility project of activism and ethical investigation curated by veteran photographer Andrew Tshabangu and young photographer, Seth Kriger.

It’s the result of the “Urban Space and Public Life” mentorship programme that invited photographers to respond to public spaces in various communities across Africa. Ten selected photographers from SA, Uganda, Sudan, Egypt, Mozambique, Mali, Ghana and Nigeria took part in a three-month online photography mentorship through the Market Photo Workshop.

For Tshabangu the exhibition (with its site of choice) is personal. “The exhibition is important to me because most of us come from these communities. We make and take pictures in the townships which ultimately end up in galleries and museums where people don’t have access to see the results and see themselves. The importance of having this exhibition here in Joubert Park is for us and the people who live in these communities to see themselves and own the ideas that the exhibition presents about their own spaces. The exhibition has come home to the people it belongs to,” Tshabangu said.

It was also important for him to include women in the project. The works of photographers Israa Alrrayah, Dahlia Maubane and Oluwayemisi Onadipe highlight safety challenges, entangled intimacies and urban cultural languages for women navigating city and public life in the continent. Alrrayah’s collection of images was taken amid her fleeing the civil war in the capital, Khartoum in central Sudan, where now warring parties are engaging in widespread gender violence in addition to attacking hospitals and blocking humanitarian aid. Titled War, Peace and Soul In Between, the quietness of her pictures juxtapose the violence and hardship of war with the stillness of daily spiritual life and culture in the outskirts communities where she sought refuge and safety.

The serenity of spiritual life in Alrrayah's 'War, Peace and Soul In Between'
The serenity of spiritual life in Alrrayah's 'War, Peace and Soul In Between'
Image: Israa Alrrayah

In her work, People and Spaces, Onadipe followed one woman working in a market in Lagos, giving an intimate view of the entanglements of personal experiences in urban life. With the portraits she hopes to remove the anonymity of the poor and marginalised while pushing the boundaries of street photography towards a conscious interrogation of people in public spaces in Nigeria.

Locally Maubane has been photographing women street hairstylists with their outdoor hair salons in Johannesburg, Mahikeng and Maputo since 2012. The title of her work, Woza Sisi, comes from the popular and competing call phrases (woza uzobona, woza sisi, woza nice) from the entrepreneurs as they lure customers to the varied hair styles they offer. The presence of these women has cemented how they have taken up space and created a recognisable culture in African street life.

The intimacies of daily life in Onadipe's 'People and Spaces'
The intimacies of daily life in Onadipe's 'People and Spaces'
Image: Oluwayemisi Onadipe

A recurring theme in the exhibition is of lingering colonial hangovers and legacies as seen in the work of Cape Town-based Kriger. Titled Over Flow, his collection of photographs captures a set of urban aquatic tidal pools and the public architectures that surround them to comment on the residues of apartheid’s separatist policies.

Of the work, he said, “When the separate amenities laws came in, a lot of these beaches were listed as white-only beaches. Even now after the eradication of apartheid laws, it’s still majority white people that engage with these urban aquatic architectures. There’s always the presence of absence. You won’t see people in these photos and I’m thinking about who do we then envision and see in these images and what does that say. And in looking at these tidal pools I was thinking about them as urban aquatic constructions. These things that are sought to limit, and accommodate means of white leisure. It speaks to how public spaces have been policed and weaponised and how people engage with them.”

The presence of absence in Kriger's 'Over Flow'
The presence of absence in Kriger's 'Over Flow'
Image: Seth Kriger

The in, relating to, or characteristic of exhibition seems to extend on the PhD work of theatre practitioner and playwright, Alex Halligey — a site-specific participatory theatre as public art project that evolved into the production, Breaths of Joburg in collaboration with UJ, performed outside the Windybrow Arts Centre in the neighbouring Nugget and Pietersen streets in 2023. With the research project Halligey seeks to make plays about everyday city placemaking and explore how creative writing and theatre might work together for expressions and dialogue about the city of Johannesburg.

Similarly, it is the aim of CAPS to extend the discourse about public spaces by bringing this visual exhibition into public spaces to see how they are used, and to bring them to life. Social scientist working with City of Joburg and CAPS, Ayanda Roji said a long-term goal is to create an urban archiving platform that brings veteran, street, and emerging photographers together.

Urban cultural languages in Maubane's 'Woza Sisi'
Urban cultural languages in Maubane's 'Woza Sisi'
Image: Dahlia Maubane

“We believe they’re doing wonderful work of capturing day to day life of the city, and there’s history of the city that is sitting with veteran photographers. We’d like there to be a permanent online platform that people can see. And when I say people, I’m challenging us city practitioners so we can see how our cities are evolving. Our hope is that the policies that we develop can really talk to the realities on the ground,” Roji said.

The in, relating to, or characteristic of: a photographic exploration of urban and public life in Africa, exhibition can be viewed at Joubert Park, Johannesburg until August 19.

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